


Like A Feather In The Breeze

by luninosity



Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Epiphanies, First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s love at first sight. And then there’s love at approximately five-hundredth sight, apparently. And first kisses under happy sunshine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Feather In The Breeze

**Author's Note:**

> If you've not seen the clips of Sebastian-as-Winter-Soldier tripping over the cars, on set, I highly encourage that experience.

Chris Evans is happy.  
  
This is not an unusual occurrence—he thinks of himself as a generally happy person, bar the occasional knee-weakening hyperventilating anxiety attack about the future and auditions and what the hell he’s even doing with his life and why producers keep giving him movie roles—but what’s unusual is the quiet clarity of the emotion. The way it feels easy, like he’s tipped his face up to the sunlight and the rays’ve spilled all the way to his bones.  
  
He’s watching Sebastian run across a crashed car, and he’s smiling.  
  
Simple facts. Like the sunlight. He’s here in his Captain America gear, holding the shield, waiting for his cue to join the fight; Sebastian Stan’s practicing menacing leaps onto and off of the long-suffering vehicles and nodding at their directors. The sunlight’s warm and contented on his skin, and Chris feels warm and contented too. Smiling.  
  
Sebastian backs up and launches himself at the car for the fifth time. Chris finds himself idly tracing every flex of lean thighs with his gaze. Every flick of long dark hair. Every economical assassin-sharp motion.  
  
The thought’s not an abruptly formed one. He’s too comfortable for that. It slides in slowly instead, patient as molten honey. He’s watching Sebastian move and breathe and fall out of Winter-Soldier deadliness and into wistful hopeful adorableness between takes: was that all right, is that the right angle for the landing, do you want me to do it again, I can, no problem, _nici o problemă—_  
  
Joe Russo says maybe one more. Sebastian does not complain. Only vaults onto the car one more time, under the sun—  
  
—and trips.  
  
Not badly. Even as Chris starts forward, heart leaping into his throat, Sebastian’s stumbling, catching himself on the car’s roof and one knee, arms flailing. Looking up, waving, laughing behind the mask. “I’m fine, I’m fine, _rahat_ , that was awful, sorry—just clumsy, sorry, I’ll go back—”  
  
But he’s making a wry little annoyed expression with those eyes, hopping to the ground, rubbing his right knee as if apologizing to it; the sunlight tangles in his hair and he’s ridiculously beautiful, long legs and self-directed frustration and a fleeting wince when he puts weight on that joint.  
  
Chris’s next inhale lodges someplace in the vicinity of his heart, and sticks there like a spear-point of sweet gold.  
  
There’s love at first sight. And then there’s love at approximately five-hundredth sight, apparently.  
  
He’s seen Sebastian so many times. He’s always thought—always _said_ —Sebastian’s a sweet kid, the nicest person on the planet, wide-eyed and coltish and startledly excited whenever anyone includes him in dinner plans or invites him into conversation.  
  
He feels like he’s never seen Sebastian before.  
  
It’s the laughter. It’s the sunlight. It’s the moment. It’s the way Chris wants to sprint to his side and make sure that honestly _was_ just a fleeting wince and not deliberately concealed hurt, and never mind that he can see Sebastian walking on it for himself.  
  
It’s the way he wants to run hands over that knee and that thigh and then up to Sebastian’s face, so that he can cup those wonderful cheeks in his hands, weave fingers through all that dark hair, and draw those curving lips into a kiss.  
  
He’s just thought the word love. And he means it. He just—means it.  
  
Simple facts. Like the glowing sunlight.  
  
The world is splendid and sweet, and Sebastian Stan is splendid and, yes, sweet. Is hesitant and kind and thoughtful and mischievous and above all complicated, layers of learned reserve and irrepressible playfulness and passion and commitment entwined like intricate puzzle-balls. Chris wants to unravel all those layers, or maybe not all of them, or maybe not all at once; he wants to know exactly however much Sebastian feels safe telling him, and he wants to be the person who can be there, holding out a patient hand while puzzle-pieces un-knot themselves one by one.  
  
Stunned, processing in bits and fragments, he realizes he’s never pictured a future without Sebastian in it. Ever since the first Captain America film. He’d sort of mentally assumed he’d be seeing those pale glinting aquamarine eyes, hearing that Romanian-folklore-by-way-of-New-York-skyscrapers lilt, in every Cap film to come.  
  
He’d never even thought about a sequel without Bucky Barnes in there _someplace_ , in oblivious mental defiance of that rather definitive falling-from-a-train moment. Hadn’t crossed his mind.  
  
Had it crossed Sebastian’s? Even with that impressive Marvel contract, there’re never guarantees, and those mountain-pool eyes take nothing for granted; of course it would’ve. Sometime.  
  
He can’t separate his past and future into loving Sebastian and not, because he’s beginning to be helplessly certain he’s been in love with Sebastian all along, but he can divide time into The Realization and after. And the after’s getting kind of crowded with panic.  
  
What should he do? What can he do? Can Sebastian see it on his face? Can everyone? Would Sebastian even want to—to—  
  
Would Sebastian want _him?_ Chris isn’t blind to the way some people seem to find him attractive, he likes to think he’s got a decent sense of humor, he tries to be a nice guy, he’s loyal, he loves his mother, he’s got the Captain America muscles if Sebastian likes that sort of thing—  
  
He doesn’t even know if Sebastian likes that sort of thing. He’s pretty sure Sebastian’s not opposed to looking both ways, if certain comments about Iron Man’s attractiveness’re any indication, but what if Sebastian likes men like Tony Stark, self-confident and self-reliant and flippant and wounded and dazzling? How can Chris, who never went to college and who could live on pizza and beer and who goes jogging in sweatpants on Saturday mornings, ever compete?  
  
At some point in there he’s shut his eyes. He can hear himself breathing. His pulse thunders in his ears.  
  
Okay. Okay, he’s talking himself into the anxiety attack now, and that’s stupid, they’ve got a film to shoot and a fight scene to run and it’s all in his head anyway, just his personal world being flipped upside-down and sideways and inside-out, and he can’t let it bleed onto anyone else, especially not Sebastian, who never asked for this, doesn’t deserve this imposition—  
  
Fingertips touch his face. Lift his chin. “Chris?”  
  
He knows that voice. He opens his eyes.  
  
Sebastian. Winter Soldier mask off and dropped somewhere out of sight. Cheekbones framed by sunlight. Otherworldly. Concerned. About him.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he manages, and wishes for the superpower to melt into the cracked freeway bridge beneath him. Unsurprisingly, despite all the friendly sympathy black asphalt can muster, this proves impossible.  
  
“No,” Sebastian says. “Are you all right? Do you need to sit down? —here, come here, sit on this very convenient car. It wants you to. And look at me.”  
  
Chris obediently sits on the car. Sebastian’s hand hasn’t left him, having settled on his shoulder. Protective, possessive. He’s not quite sure what that means.  
  
Sebastian waves the other—ungloved—hand in front of his eyes. “Heatstroke? Focus. How many fingers?”  
  
“Two…is that a European thing? The…two fingers you’re using…” Because those turquoise eyes now look more alarmed, as if doubting his coherence, he tries to demonstrate. “Counting. Starting from…you know what, never mind.” He’s beginning to doubt his own coherence also. And is having a powerful desire to thump his head against the stoic car.  
  
Sebastian mutters blasphemous-sounding words in multiple languages. Chris gets the French okay, if not the other two. “Did you just call me a…ridiculous donkey?”  
  
“Stubborn,” Sebastian announces, and leans in to scrutinize his eyes, which means their mouths’re inches apart. Chris frantically smothers the impulse to dive forward. Sebastian sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me—anyone—why didn’t you tell anyone you needed a break? I’ve only been rehearsing; you’ve been standing around in the heat waiting for me. I shall have to have words with Joe and Anthony.”  
  
“I’m fine!…you’d do that? For me?” The last two words escape before he can yank them back. Sebastian, so reticent about anything truly personal, so tentative of welcome for anything not character or role-related, offering that…  
  
“You have no idea what I would do for you,” Sebastian says almost absentmindedly, absorbed in picking up Chris’s wrist, testing his pulse. The words hit the air and hang there, casual unremarked truth.  
  
Chris swallows. Takes those words and a very deep breath and transmutes them into honesty of his own, on the sunbaked dusty freeway-set afternoon with good-natured directorial grumbles starting in the background.  
  
He turns his hand. Catches Sebastian’s fingers with his.  
  
Sebastian stops, all motion arrested. Astonished long-legged hollow-boned ibis poised before flight.  
  
The sunbeams pool encouragement between their joined fingers.  
  
And Sebastian says, “Oh,” without any sound.  
  
“Yeah.” Chris rubs a thumb over the back of Sebastian’s hand, discovering knuckles, soft skin, a tiny old scar near the smallest finger. “Yeah. You.”  
  
“Me…but…” Sebastian looks at their hands as well. “Since _when?”_  
  
“Since always,” Chris says, looking up, looking at him. “I only just figured it out. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot, I’m sorry, I—you tripped on the car and I thought you might be hurt and you were laughing and I love you.”  
  
Sebastian blinks. Twice. Lashes sweeping down and up. Bird’s-wings, hovering between disbelief and joy. “You may need to say all of that one more time…did you say you love me?”  
  
“Um. Yes. Sorry. Are you okay?” He squeezes the fingers more tightly. “You looked like you were hurt. Your knee.”  
  
Sebastian stares at him, mutters something that sounds like a plain English “fuck,” and then lunges forward and kisses him.  
  
The kiss is awkward. They’re perched side-by-side on a movie-set crashed car, B-roll cameras sneakily recording away. Sebastian’s not at the right angle and Chris refuses to let go of his hand and they’re both windblown and amazed.  
  
The kiss is perfect. Fireworks Chris can feel everyplace. Erupting through his bones. The taste of bitter black coffee and chapstick and sunshine.  
  
He tries to wrap the other arm around Sebastian’s shoulders. Sebastian tries to climb into his lap. They tumble off the car and land on the ground—Chris flips them last-minute so he takes the weight of the impact—and keep kissing through the laughter.  
  
“I love you,” Sebastian announces, sprawled atop him, legs tangled up in Chris’s own, hair falling into one eye. They’re nose to nose. “I have since—forever. _Te iubesc._ I love you. The first screen test, do you remember that? You were incredibly tired, and I was late—traffic—”  
  
“And you ran in apologizing in three languages and forgot to introduce yourself, and I thought you were the new intern on duty—wait, since then? Really? I—do that again, oh fuck—I asked you to get me coffee!” He kind of wants to groan at the memory, but can’t. Sebastian’s nibbling at his lower lip. The world’s flawlessly bright.  
  
“You said please,” Sebastian breathes into the kiss. “Even when you didn’t know who I was. You smiled at me and told me not to worry and said please, and I fell in love with the person who could look so tired and be so kind to a flustered intern. I’ve _always_ loved you.”  
  
This time Chris is the one who says “Oh,” hushed and heartfelt, and then puts his hands in Sebastian’s hair to pull him closer, the way he’s been wanting to all along.  
  
Sebastian’s eyes light up. Unguarded horizons, endless and beckoning: wanting _more_.  
  
One of the Russo brothers bellows, megaphone not even necessary, “You’re not getting paid to film the porno version, guys!”  
  
The other one adds, equally loudly, “At least not yet!”  
  
Sebastian starts laughing, still lying atop him. Chris can feel the laughter through every inch of him. Can see it shining in winter-river eyes. “Not yet, indeed. The sequel, perhaps.”  
  
“I’m in if you are.”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian muses, accent positively wicked behind the innocence, “I do like the idea of you being _in_ ,” and Chris chokes on non-existent dust specks. “You did _not_ just say—”  
  
“If you’d like I could even pretend to be your brand-new intern. Very wide-eyed, bringing you coffee, forgetting to wear underwear. Sir.”  
  
Chris is aware that his mouth is open. After a minute, he manages to close it.  
  
Sebastian grins, shyness visibly creeping in around the edges, but unrepentant. “Or is that a third date sort of idea?”  
  
“Fuck yes,” Chris says, “it’s a third date idea, and I think right now plus the whole first movie ought to count as the first two, and I love you.” Sebastian’s eyes are sparkling down at him, and those eyes and the dancing sunbeams and the hot freeway under his back and Chris himself are all happier than they’ve ever, ever been.


End file.
